Facebook removes Hezbollah page
Facebook has removed pages created by Hezbollah and its
television station, Al-Manar, over incitement to violence, the Daily Star
reported Sunday.
The social networking giant thus followed recommendations
by the US State Department. The latter included Hezbollah on its list of terror
organization in 2004; adding it TV station to the list in 2006.
"Under our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities
we do not allow content that 'incites violence,'" Frederic Wolens, a
Facebook spokesperson, said.
"And to help keep our site safe, we use the State
Department List of Foreign Terror Organizations to help make determinations of
which groups may be involved in the promotion of violence. Due to Hezbollah’s
appearance on the list, they have been removed from the site."
Both Google and Apple removed al-Manar's applications
from their stores in July. The move was linked to a report published by the
Washington DC-based Middle East Media Research Institute, which urged Google,
Apple and Facebook to exclude Hezbollah and its affiliates.
The institute urged YouTube and Twitter, both of which
Al-Manar has accounts on, to do the same.
But the Shiite terror group has relaunched the app on
Thursday, as the Al-Manar’s website offered an alternative way to download its
app, "following the campaign carried out by the Jewish Anti-Defamation
League to deactivate Al-Manar applications on smartphones at Google Play and
Apple store."
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a statement,
expressing concern about the move: "As terrorist groups adapt to new
technologies and figure out ways to circumvent restrictions, it is critical for
the industry to take appropriate action to ensure that their services are not
exploited by terror organizations.
"The ADL will continue to monitor and expose how
Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations use current technology to spread
their violent messages and to work with Internet service companies to see to it
that terrorists don’t succeed in evading industry safeguards designed to
prevent the use of these platforms to promote terrorism. Now more than ever,
the stakes are too high to be complacent."
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